1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording method and an ink jet recording apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink jet method, which ejects an ink from an opening of a nozzle, a slit, or a porous film, is compact and low-cost and therefore has been widely used in various printers. Among such an ink jet method, a piezo ink jet method using deformation of a piezoelectric element to eject an ink, and a thermal ink jet method using thermal energy to boil and thereby eject an ink can print high-resolution images at high speed.
In the field of ink jet printers, one of the important tasks is high-speed printing of a high-quality image on plain paper. In order to achieve this task, an ink jet recording method has been proposed which includes the steps of applying a liquid containing a compound with a cationic group onto a recording medium, and applying an ink containing an anionic dye to form an image immediately after the liquid penetrates into the recording medium, disappears from the surface of the recording medium, and remains in the recording medium (see Japanese Patent No. 2,667,401)
Further, to achieve rapid drying, high optical density, and high image quality, a color ink set has been proposed in which a black ink contains water and a water-soluble solvent and shows a drying time of 5 seconds or less on plain paper, and each of color inks contains a colorant, water, a water-soluble solvent, and a coagulating agent for coagulating a component of the black ink and shows a penetrating time of 5 seconds or less into plain paper (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2001-294788)
Also, an ink jet printing method is proposed (see JP-A 9-254376) which is an ink jet printing method for double sided printing on a recording medium comprising a step of selecting one of either a double sided printing mode or single sided printing mode. Here, when the double sided printing mode is selected, another selection step is provided between: a treatment liquid print mode, in which a treatment liquid is applied to the recording medium; and, a low density printing mode, in which the amount of ink ejected onto the recording medium is reduced.
However, with the above methods, because the aim is to improve image quality, in the likes of optical density, bleeding, and inter color bleeding, not enough consideration has been made of drying time or fixation time. In particular, when undertaking high speed printing at the same time as double sided printing, because of contact of the printed surface with feeding rollers and such paper conveying structural elements just after printing, colorant can get stuck to the paper conveying structural elements. This stuck-on colorant can be re-transferred onto the image area and it is clear that dirty images can occur. Accordingly, technologies for improving not only drying time and fixation, but also image characteristics such as optical density, bleeding, and intercolor bleeding, have been required.